HoO iPod Shuffle Challenge
by JE 3
Summary: My attempt at a Heros Of Olympus Shuffle challenge. Songs listed before each story.


**A/N: Hey guys! I know I haven't uploaded in forever and a day, my computer kind of quit on me I only recently got up and running again. Anyway,this is my attempt at the Heroes of Olympus iPod shuffle challenge. For those of you who don't know the rules, I will press shuffle on one random playlist on my iPod and use whatever song comes up as a prompt for a one-shot. Then I'll do the same thing a few more times. Please note that these are not songfics. I'm not writing them as such and they should not be read as such. I'm just using the general idea for a song as the general idea for a one-shot. The one-shots will be unconnected and random. I will list the song before each story. Enjoy!**

"Love the Way you lie." Eminem featuring Rihanna.

Annabeth was insane. She had to be. Why else would she go back to him? Why would she, when she knew what happened to her? God, she just- he always said things would be different. He always said that he would be better, he would change, he would treat her right. He was always lying. He always seemed so sincere, so heartbroken, when she left that she allowed herself to believe him. She wanted things to be better, for him to be better, but it was impossible. And now she was trapped. Trapped in this living hell she'd willfully fallen into.

These nights were the worst. When he'd just finished her beating, and he just gone down to local pub to drink himself unconscious. He'd pass out drunk at the bar, come back the next day, all apologies and _I love you's _and all the other meaningless crap he always spewed the day after he nearly killed her. And where was she? Same place as always. Sobbing and bleeding on the cold hardwood floor of her cozy two-story prison. The room was littered with broken picture frames, smashed furniture, and of course, smashed, broken young woman. The tears streamed hot and numerous on her face, getting caught in the swollen black left eye the bastard left her with.

He always left her like that. Like he just left the house on fire stood and watched it burn. The only thing she hated more than the night of the morning after. When he tried to be sweet and attentive, while still silently urging her to never tell a soul, or he'd do worse. He'd carry her to bed, set her down, and suggest she just get some rest, _not_ leave the bed for a while. All code for _'If you let anyone find out what I've done to you, you won't live to regret it.' _

Oh, she didn't need to be told to keep her beatings to herself. Who would she tell, anyway? She'd ostracized herself from all of her friends, and her family was either absent or dead. The only person she might even consider going to was Rachel, her friend from the small artists collective she'd frequented when she'd been studying architecture in college. She since abandoned that dream, opting instead to focus on her relationship. '_Bit of cruel irony there isn't it?' _She thought bitterly.

Rachel was the only friend she'd managed to hold on to through all the hell the past few months had been. She was always concerned for Annabeth; what with the weeks she might go without talking to her, or her refusing to meet Rachel in person. For all that, though, Rachel had stayed loyal. Always trying to invite her to some late-night function or just chat (which mostly amounted to Annabeth listening to Rachel talk, just grateful to hear a genuinely kind voice). She never even asked about the constant bruises or scrapes she sported regularly. Not for lack of concern, but because Annabeth had made it clear it was a topic she did not want to discuss. She was actually contemplating calling Rachel; just to hear her talk for a while and forget the past day for a second, when she heard the sirens.

The whining, cycling sound of police sirens closing on the house. Oh, God. What had happened? Then, he burst into the room. His dark blue eyes brimming with rage, his chestnut brown hair looked like a rats nest. Adam Likens; her boyfriend, the one who'd confined her to her bedroom, who'd left her this, broken mess. He rushed her bed and grabbed hold of her wrist, pulling her roughly to her feet.

"What the hell, Annabeth?! You called the cops on me? Where the hell do you get off?"

"Adam, I – I don't know what you're talking about! I didn't call them, I swear it! I don't know why they're here!"

"You lying little bitch! Do you think I'm an idiot?" He seethed into her ear. He had his hand clasped around her neck now. It was getting harder to breathe. "Why would you call them, huh? Because of things like this?!" Adam reared back and brought his hand swiftly across her face in a hard slap. Annabeth fell harshly on her back. Didn't matter how many times that happened (and it had happened quite a lot) it always surprised her. She looked up at Adam, and couldn't believe someone who'd been so kind to her, was now the source of so many of her fears.

"You make me do this, you make me hurt you." Adam yelled. He grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and forcefully turned around to look at herself in the wall-mounted mirror. Her left eye was still black and swollen, and left side of her face had taken on a new shade of red; evidence of the earlier slap. He held her there for a moment, giving her time to truly think about the person staring back at her. She saw a battered, bruised young woman and she didn't recognize her. It wasn't just the injuries and bruises that were unfamiliar to her, it was the copious amount of fear she could see in the one gray eye that wasn't blackened. Annabeth knew one thing, looking at this unfamiliar person. It wasn't her. And, whoever this was, it was at Adam, not her, that had brought this person into being. The sirens were getting louder now. They were very close. Annabet just wanted all this to be over. She hated this person in the mirror, and she hated Adam too. She didn't care what happened anymore. If Adam made good on his past threats of killing her, or the police came and took her away, she didn't care. She heard a voice at the door.

"This is the police. Open up." She heard the voice call, as Adam began to drag her towards living room, his right arm wrapping around her neck in a headlock. Her vision was starting to go blurry now. The voice came again.

"Open up now, or were breaking down the door. You have until the count of three..." Adam opened the drawer on the small nighstand next to the couch and slipped out an ugly little machine-pistol, the grip wrapped in duct tape, the elongated barrel covered with the little hole-dotted tube.

"One." The policeman started.

Adam flung Annabeth to the floor, and leveled the gun towards the door.

"Two."

Annabeth crawled toward the far corner of the room, grabbing for the leg of the nightstand to steady herself.

"Three!" Two men clad in police uniforms burst though the door and into the room brandishing Glock pistols. There were two men , one standing a bit taller than the other. One of the cops , the taller one, surveyed the room and looked towards Adam, who hadn't moved the gun, then over to Annabeth. He took a short, measured breath and said to Adam, "Sir, we've recieved several worrying phonecalls concerning a case of domestic abuse. Would you know anything about that?"

The man looked over to Annabeth again, no doubt noticeing her bruised face. He looked over to Adam again.

"Sir, please lower the weapon, we only want to talk."

"Right, that's why you two brought the guns." Adam spat. The smaller cop stepped foward slowly.

"Sir, please, just drop the gun. We don't want anyone to get hurt here."

Annabeth was able to get a good look at the blue-clad man in front of her; deathly pale skin, dark, sunken eyes, dark brown hair, same as Adam's. To his credit, he didn't look scared of the man with gun. He should have, but he didn't. She felt a rough tug as she was hoisted to her feet and locked into a one-armed chokehold. She felt the cold, oily metal of the gun press against her temple.

"How about this? How about you two pigs drop _your _guns, kick them over here, get the hell out my house, and I don't splatter this sweet little thing's brains all over the floor." Adam tapped the barrel of the gun to Annabeth's cheek, before quickly alternating his sights between the two policemen. The closer of the two, the smaller one, inched a little closer to the two of them. His body language screamed action. His legs were bent slightly at the knee, his eyes subtlely studying Adam. He was tensed, coiled, ready to strike the second he saw an opening. Annabeth felt the large arm around her throat tense as well. Her eyes were really starting to fail now.

As the world around her began to blur, she noticed that the second cop, the taller, stockier one, was slowly readying his weapon. Adam was too embroiled watching the closer man to notice. But Annabeth noticed. She found her fading gaze oddly transfixed on the man. Shoulders hunched, eyes leveling his sights under the brim of his cap. Ready to fire, but still willing to wait until he had to. His stance was calm, measured, and stable. He kept his eyes on the Adam, hoping to end this safely. Annabeth wanted that too, but she knew better. Adam was being allowed to get too angry. He would snap soon.

Annabeth saw what would happen before it happened. She saw the smaller cop jump before he jumped. She saw him bend his knees deeper and fly at Adam before Adam did. But it didn't matter. Adam saw it soon enough to stop it. He flung Annabeth away from him and into the wall. She felt the back of her head strike something sild, and she almost lost it. Her whole body felt numb. She was motionless. But she was there. And she heard it all, and she saw it all. She heard the short burst of automatic fire, and she saw the chargeing man fly backward in a clockwise spiral. Then she heard the two single shots from the far side of the room, and she saw a crimson jet of blood spurt from Adam's neck. She saw him fall to the ground, landing face first into the small puddle of red that had accumulated around him. The last thing she thought before fading from consiousness was that she was not going to clean up whatever mess Adam left. She was just far too tired.

~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'

When Annabeth woke up in the hospital the next day, she thought the morphine must have been a bit too large a dose, because all she could think about was the fact that Rachel, who was now standing over her, her bright red hair clashing boldly with the sterile white of the hospital room, was crying her eyes out. Rachel did not cry. It was simple fact. So seeing her like that, her swollen eyes matching her hair in hue, made Annabeth suspect something serious was wrong. When Rachel noticed her friend was awake, she flew into a flurry of tears, apologies, and a lot of hugging and hand classping. She might have also been talking, but Annabeth could not be bothered to pay attenion. Soon she was drifting back under, letting the painkillers take effect

~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~''~'

When she awoke again, she was greeted with more coming, if unfamiliar, presence. It was one of the policeman. The taller one, the one who hadn't charged. He was staring intently at her face, now seeimg that she was awake. It was the first good look she'd gotten of him. He had olive skin, obsidian-black hair, and peirceing green eyes. He was good looking, but there was a certain air of confidance about him that completed the look. You got the sense that he could handle any situation, and he was well aware of that. She was suddenly extremely aware of the fact that her face was bruised and battered, besides the fact that she probably hadn't been washed in the past two days. She then realized how stupid she was being. Who cared what she looked like?

"Excuse me, why are you in here?" Annabeth demanded, her voice too tight for the malice she tried to convey to be beliveable.

"Mrs. Chase, do you remember me?" He asked, straightfoward, not bothering to acknowlegde her question. Somehow, Annabeth didn't mind. The way he spoke, he made it clear that what he was talking about was more important than what she wanted to talk about. It would be wise if they she answered his question before he answered her's.

"Yes, you're the cop that was in my house earlier. The one who didn't charge the guy with the machine gun, right?" The policeman smiled a humorless smile.

"Yes, ma'am, that would be me." He produced a small flip notebook and wrote something down.

"May I ask what it is you're recording about me, Officer...?"

"Jackson. And I'm verifying that you don't seem to be suffering from memory loss."

"And you can tell this how?"

"Well, I figure if you can remember who I am, then I'm sure you know who you are."

"Sound logic." Annabeth allowed.

They were silent for a few moments.

"Officer Jackson?"

"Yes, Ms. Chase?"

"Why was memory loss a concern for me?"

"You suffered a minor concussion when you hit your head yesterday. They were a bit worried at first, but you check out now. No detectable brain damage, minimal blood loss. You should be out of here in no more than a couple of days."

"Okay." Annabeth replied, feeling the painkillers take effect again. She didn't know how much longer she'd be able to stay awake. "Officer Jackson, why are you here?" Annabeth asked, going back to her first question.

"Huh?"

"Why are you in my hospital room? I mean, don't you have to report this whole thing? This seems like a pretty serious case to me."

"My partner's here." he said, in a way that suggested he'd grieved already, so Annabeth assumed that the man could not be in too bad of shape.

"The man Adam shot?" Annabeth's voice caught at the mention of _him_.

"Yeah, him. He got caught in the shoulder. He lost quite a lot of blood, and some muscle tissue was damaged pretty badly. He'll be out of action for a few months, at least." He rubbed the back of his neck, looked down at his feet, then back to her.

"Listen, "

"Annabeth. You can call me Annabeth. You might've saved my life earlier, so no sense in observeing formalities." She tried for a brave smile. It looked more shaken, honestly.

"All right, Annabeth. Listen, I need to tell you something. Do you remember anything that happened after you were thrown to the wall?"

"Yeah. Everything." Annabeth confirmed.

'So, did you hear the gun shots."

"Yes, um, Adam shot your partner when he charged him, and then." Annabeth paused, remembering seeing Adam's neck spurtin blood, and him falling. She turned herself on her side, with a good bit of effort, and faced the man next to her. "You shot, right. That's why he went down?"

"Yes, you're right, I did shoot him. That's what I wanted to tell you. After our first encounter, we rushed both you and Adam to the hospital, and we were able to keep you from going to critical condition. Adam, I'm afraid, wasn't so lucky. My first bullet struck the top of his chest, just under the Adam's apple, and the other found his jugular. They were able to keep him alive over the ambulance ride, but he bled out, just moments before they were able to admit him. He was pronounced dead a few hours."

Annabeth was surprised to find that she didn't feel like crying. She heard what he said, she registered the information, replayed the events in her head, and decided that it must be true. Adam was dead. But she wasn't crying. She didn't feel relief, happiness, joy of any kind, but she didn't feel sad either. But, there was something to be taken away from this. All those years should pray for it to be over, it was finally over. She should be happy, but she decided that she was still a little too screwed up to be happy. There are be time for being happy later, when she could make sense and be certain that that's what she should feel. She'd want to focus on this anymore, so she asked another question.

"Who called you? How did you get the call?"  
"A woman by the name of Rachel Dare called us, she said she was a close friend of yours and that you might be in danger. We can undertake domestic abuse very seriously these days, as they can so easily turned into murder, so they sent the two cops closest to your location. In this case, it was Ofc. D'Angelo and myself."

"D'Angelo?"

"My partner. You know, the guy that got a couple dozen rounds pumped into his shoulder?"

"You think he'd be okay with you making light of his wound?"

"Well, considering I lost a quarter of a lung in a surgery to make sure that a bullet wound I have left in my chest didn't let tumors destroyed half my body, and he comforted me by singing 'If I Only Had A Heart" from the Wizard of Oz, but replacing every instance of the word heart with lung, I don't really did care if he was okay with me making light of his wound." He smiled a big,warm smile. The kind of that said he'd said this to D'Angelo, and D'Angelo hadn't been able to think of a comeback, so he'd gotten away with saying it. Despite herself, and was starting to like this Ofc. Jackson. Underneath the cold cock persona, there was a definite layer of smart ass in there. He had a nice smile, too. The kind that made you want to smile back at him. The kind that made you want to see him smile again.

"Excuse me, Officer?" A rotunda, pleasant looking nurse with curly brown hair came in to the room.

"They've just cleared your partner to go home, on bed rest for a few weeks. They wanted me to ask if you want to leave with him." Annabeth both a sudden, irrational rush of anxiety. Strangely, she really didn't want him to go.

"Um, well..." He looked over at Annabeth quickly, then back to the nurse. "Do we know how long will be here for?" He asked, automatically reverting to his cop voice. The nurse looked over to her and smiled warmly.

"Oh, she'll just be here for maybe a few more hours, we my keep her overnight, but she'll probably just sleep most of the time. In fact, she's actually due to start a slightly stronger morphine drip." She gestured to the small rectangular bag filled with clear liquid in her left hand. Ofc. Jackson stepped aside to allow the nurse to rearrange Annabeth's drip, and without thinking, she grabbed for his wrist.

"We you be here when I wake up?" She asked, surprised by the urgance , and the amount of pleading, in her voice.

"Oh, um, sure. Yeah, yeah I'll be here." He said, gently detaching her hand from his wrist.

"Thanks, it would just be really nice to have someone to help me make sense of this a little bit more, once this is all over."

"No problem." He said, smiling again. As the nurse reached forward to start her on next drip, she told the nurse

"Wait! Um, I didn't catch your first name. If you're going to stay here until I wake up, then I should at least know what name to use I say thank you."

"Percy, my names's Percy Jackson."

"Well, thank you officer Percy Jackson." She said, actually smiling herself now. She turned her head over to the nurse and nodded. The nurse flicked the switch on the tube and Annabeth felt the medication rush through her. As the world faded around her, she looked over one more time to man standing by her bed, smiling reassuringly. For the first time in a while, Annabeth Chase found herself excited to wake up.

**A/N: all right, I got it done! I just want to say, real quick, once again that these are not songfics. I'm just using the basic prompt. For example, this song is about an abusive relationship, so there was an abusive relationship in the story. Just wanted to clear that up. I'm not sure when I'll update this again, honestly I'll probably it when ever I feel like it, so don't expect any kind of schedule, but I still hope you like it. JE out.**


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